Alhamdulillah, let us all bow to this enlightened one for saving us from our ignorance and delusional practices which were going just fine before this great revelation.

I will only waste enough time for a single post on such an obviously provocative thread, but there is a glaring fault here that I would like to point out, which makes this argument very impractical.

There is an important prerequisite to believing in the vital force, which you are either ignorant of, or simply reject. This is the concept that there are spiritual/astral counterparts to the physical world - in other words there is more to this Creation than the physical plane.At least, this is what is taught in most western magic like which is popular here.

I cannot vouch for those systems which use "ki" "prana" etc., but magicians are not taught that the vital force is a physical energy that maintains the physical body. They are taught that it is a spiritual force which functions within the spiritual bodies.

This entire argument is a stalemate. You will not find physical evidence of the vital power, or any other spiritual force the magician works with, because they are not physical forces. It would be like you are looking for fish on land.Now you will find things in the physical world that is related, similar, connected or representative of these forces, but you will not find a pure manifestation.

If a magician wishes to understand the physical world, he looks to science like anyone else. But if he wishes to learn about the spiritual or esoteric, he looks towards his magic.

And this is where we find this stalemate:You seem to be under the perspective that there is only the physical sphere of existence - most magicians do not have that perspective.You cannot prove to the magicians that the spiritual counterparts to Creation is false,, and they cannot prove to you through direct physical evidence that there is a spiritual counterpart to Creation, because it has no existence within the physical sphere to begin with.Despite this, magicians and occultists of various kinds will continue to practice like they always have, and, regardless of whether or not it is real, they will continue to benefit in some form from these practices - if they didn't, it would have been abandoned long ago.

You will never find the vital force under a microscope, but that is not where it is to be found in the first place.

Like how the world was proven long ago to not be flat, biology was proven to not be driven by animistic or vitalistic forces 190 years ago(almost 2 centuries). If you are one of these people who believes in chi, prana, ki, or whatever, just know you are just as foolish as people who believe the Earth is flat

If Ki isn't real, how do you explain Reiki, which is practiced worldwide and has observable benefits? Do you really think it's all in people's heads?

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I am really sick of occultists claiming they have the keys to spiritual development through their system of magic. They normally end up creating cults(like Prophecy did). The problem magicians and people who practice metaphysics tend to have are that they tend to be very pedantic and very conceited people(they’ll likely deny it of course). Spirituality is really an abstraction of having a sense of purpose, believing in something bigger than yourself, and feeling interconnected to things or people. Believe it or not, that is most people. Spirituality is correlated with pro-social behaviors and altruism, so if your “magical” or “mystical” practices don’t lead to you actively contributing to the world around you, specifically your community, you can’t really say you have developed spiritually as person meaning all the time you spend practicing the IIH is moot. Identifying a problem in your community and figuring out ways to help solve that problem in a way that you think of something beyond yourself that the community benefits from is great for your spiritual development. Adopting a mystical cosmology and then insisting you are more spiritually enlightened because of said cosmology is really just being an ass. As I said, spirituality is associated with pro-social and altruistic behaviors where a key component is the ability to see beyond yourself. That includes your beliefs. So, if you are not capable of seeing past your beliefs, you are not really capable of seeing past yourself, and if you can’t really see past yourself, then you have a hard time connecting to something greater than you. That sort of implies you’re not as spiritual as you might think. In my opinion, magicians are ironically more spiritually underdeveloped than your average person. The easiest way to gain spiritual knowledge is by learning to be of service and thinking of ways to leave the world a little bit better than when you found it(were born). Convoluted, ass-backwards mysticism not required. You see a homeless person who needs food. Buy them a meal. You see trash in a park. Pick it up. You see people victimized by a society. Help stand up for them. Again, no convoluted, ass-backwards woo cosmology required. Due to depending on that, I would say most occultists stifle their spiritual growth horribly. So, if you want to learn about the spiritual side of things, don't turn to magic. Just be a decent human being.

Hear we have it, the classic "hurr durr metaphysics is for people who don't care about others, just be nice to people lmao." This is very pedantic advice, you are exemplifying the same condescending behavior you accuse others of having. While pretending to be altruistic, it is clear that you just enjoy feeling superior to people with "woo" beliefs. Does anyone really gain out of fedora-tipping posts like this?

Post simply deleted since the point was was made by myself and others, I was tired, and no one here I know (besides mystic who I can talk to in emails) has really expressed any concern for what I'm going through in my life. I did say I didn't want pity or sympathy or anything though. Silver_Archer did express sympathy and compassion to me last year in the chat room. However, based on my behavior to the staff members in the past (as well as others) it is perfectly within reason to expect considering my long history of abhorrent behavior on this site. So...

I was going to let it stand but considering there is now no context to any of it since Rayn is a troll imo and deleted all of his posts.

Be well.

p.s. I left because of that very behavior I mentioned and it not aligning with what I was "teaching".

In debate circles in the old days, debate team in a high school, or 60s era politics, you would have instantly lost this debate, because you resorted to attacking my character, committed those logical fallacies (and maybe more- though anyone who read my argument could likely find a few).You probably skimmed my post, and had decided from the beginning (I made it quite obvious who I was to anyone who has been a member of this site for more than 4 years) that you had won. Instead of calmly replying to my argument, you simply chose emotional appeal, to attack my character, so as not to have to formulate a coherent, compelling counter argument. I don't believe I ever personally insulted you nor did I mention your race, ethnicity, gender orientation or anything about you like that, let alone insult you personally- which you just did to me personally, and showed no empathy or concern for me or mentally ill people (e.g. discriminating against me, mocking my beliefs because I have a mental illness.), on top of that you brought up me race and were essentially racist towards me in a hatred-filled rant.

Lenape? Are YOU Indian (some Natives actually don't mind that pronoun and many, many I met through my father in the 90s self-identified that way.) In fact, I am 1/8th Native, Mohawk, Iroquois tribe (Kaniekehaka in our Native language- which I learned when living on the Akwesasne Mohawk Reserve, the Rez, in the early 90s, with my father. At the Akwesasne Freedom School, of which he was the principal, where the only language allowed to be spoken was Mohawk, or Kanienkeh, no English. If I needed to use the restroom I had to ask in Mohawk- only.)

My dad was a published Native author- Joel Monture- he gave and attended talks at Cornell- and he had a Master's Degree in Creative Writing from Dartmouth College (That's Ivy League), and his bachelors from Bennington College, private, the most expensive school in the country. His parents paid for that (rich Grandpa). Dartmouth was a free ride because he was Indian. Read anout their history... Wikipedia is great.

He has 4 published novels, and made innumerous highly authentic pipebags, tobacco pouches, all beaded, that he took to Native arts shows. I saw him come home with blue ribbon after blue ribbon, all 1st place, best of show etc. He was an editor of a magazine called Multicultural Review.

I have pictures of me when young in full Native regalia of my tribe- ribbon shirt, Kustoweh, moccasins, loincloth. Further I am directly descended from Mohawk War Chief, Joseph Brant, who allied with the British Empire during the Rev War. He led 4 of the 6 (extremely powerful) Nations of the Iroquois League to fight against the American colonists and even George Washington. He sailed to England and met King George III *the leader of the British Empire* during that time. He refused to bow or prostrate before him (others would have been killed for that then!) and stated:

"I bow to no man, for I am considered a Prince among my own people. But I will gladly shake your hand."- Theyendenegea Capt. Joseph Brant, my Grandfather.

I know the Ohnkwehonweneha- the Native way. I know who I am. Others from this site knew these facts about me. Facts.

But you pulled a race card. There are 3500 fluent Mohawk speakers remaining (I am not fluent lol). There are like 120 million Japanese speakers, mostly on the mainland. And way way more Mandarin and Camtonese speakers. Simple choice, though I am Mohawk- I live very far from any reservation with Mohawk speakers. I would rather learn about other cultures I don't know about, or am interested in. The great melting pot rigjt? I just smh at people who base their ego on their race, sexual orientation, materialism etc as the kids now say, "so basic". (though I grapple with that last one materialism myself, I am finally beginning to learn). An admirable trait to be open enough to and willing to learn about culture's other than ones own. I would rather learn a language I would actually have a chance of possibly using. And again I never charged money for my teachings or study group, I worked sometimes 18 hrs straight without pay. In Sanskrit it is called Seva. Though I did not always live up to that ideal or the philosophy it embodies, I did the work for not. a. single. cent. ever. And it helped many people.

I don't know your political orientation but you have no right to bring up my race. Just as I didn't yours. Nor have I mentioned your particular disability and will not until you utter it. Because I dont view posters, or people, based on that. And- you know full well I listen to rap of all eras and grew up in group homes and so forth, in the system, because we were extremely poor. Around black (or African American or whatever pronoun you use- no disrespect) inner city youth. And at one point they accepted me so much and trusted me, they made me one of them, and put me in a street gang. A legit one. From inner city Milwaukee. Once I left it didn't mean much a d I would NEVER disrespect and flag it now.

I am culturally fluid... or I was, when I was social.

Last I checked this is America and we still have (though God knows how long....) some pretense of freedom, and some legit freedoms. And the last time I looked you did not need to be Chinese to be an accupunturist. Or a Qigong teacher. Or a Kungfu sifu. Or get a college degree in Asian studies, "sinology". Or study the Longmen Pai. Or read Dr. Yang Jing Ming and YMAA books.. which in my articles (which you probably havent read) and my study group introduction (which you probably havent read) I am forthcoming about and state outright. There is also something called wikipedia but that didnt exist in 2004 or at least, did not (and still doesn't) provide free instruction in these things, nevermind answering questions and actually hping people with posts instead of posting "This is why Rayn is right" 10000 different ways for 8 years straight, or whenever you joined.

I will pray for you and send good thoughts your way, when I can. I hope you can learn to let go of your anger. And I even told you and showed you: I am supportive of your lifestyle, culture and ethnicity. I am an extremely liberal Democrat. I am anti authoritarian. But I will not be bullied, and if you and other people of your ethnicity *treat* your SYMPATHIZERS this way... I don't know how many regular white people will support you. Even the liberals and even the Democrat-Socialists (of which I am not- but support extensive "welfare state" (b/s label) for poor people, will not tolerate that treatment... but thats a blanket generalization on my part. Yet I am not wholly white am I....welfare like we had under Clinton. My family would have been homeless without all that.

Looks like a mod cleanup happened to Rayns last post that the above reply was to. I am sorry for causing you guys (or gals) trouble- again- and apologize. I would hope my first post on this account did not break any rules and can stand.

Post deleted. It was in response to a provocative, inflammatory, racist, hatred filled response that Rayn used to attack me, to be able to get a response from me in which he could label me delusional, crazy, and a liar. He then deleted the post. This is trolling and broke multiple Veritas rules.

A few comments here based on my experiences for the past few years. I remember asking one of my very first teachers in China, well what is Qi, what is Jing, what is Shen, and so on and so on. And the response

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Not important. Just practice

I didn't understand the response of practice. Thinking on it, the answer was sublime and often something I tell people when they ask. There's a lot of reasons, but in the Chan traditions that adhere to the Quanzhen sect of Daoism, a large emphasis is placed on practice beyond ontology. Discussion of ontology are fine, in a scholastic arena, but in a practical arena, they're meaningless. What measures a student's progress isn't necessarily what you know, it is a highly subjective measurement of some teacher (or older student) to identify if your practice is right. I've been through a lot of the systems in Asia/India and that seems to be the case.

Subjectivity is critical in the Quanzhen sect. It identifies progress through several different means based on a repeated cultural method that is passed down for several years. I have seen similar methodology in other discipline and cultures (obviously with different basic explanations, but the intent is still the same). Practice.

Rayn, I read your post here. And it fails for a few reasons. Don't get me wrong, it is an amazing testimonial to drive traffic to your page (220 views translates to about 220+ hits of traffic which isn't bad for a few occult articles), but as I said multiple times to you, it's rather reductionistic in nature. That isn't to demerit reductionism, it has led to Microbiology and Molecular Cell Biology (two things in which I take very dear). However, the critical problem with your approach is manifold:

There's a lot of traditions that emphasize a core "energetic" belief. To seemingly place the core energetic belief as the cornerstone of the belief is a foolish endeavor. It is a description of a natural phenomenon through the lens of a different culture. In this, there's a lot of overlap of concepts, but it is only to describe the nature of reality, not the nature of practice.

Your conceptualization of these concepts only adheres to really one model. There's a lot of models here. Veritas utilizes the modern perspectives of Chinese philosophy that propagated after the Maoist revolution in China. In this, emphasis is placed on combining scientific method and sparse traditional leanings of health through mostly acupuncture and the three historical practical classics. There are several issues with the approach even in the Chinese philosophical community because there's limits to the approach.

Let's assume something for a moment - your assertion is right. Vitalism is false. Absolutely! From the lens of the Mahayana and Therevada traditions of Buddhism, that's absolutely correct. However, does that posit that the siddhis gained through practice of that which is false a bad thing? The entire world is false. Your perspective is that of occult which is patently false. The image of Jesus that nuns and monks pray to who experience a true awakening experience with their rooms burned from the power of their mind even though the image of Jesus is fake - should that be a detractor? Absolutely not.

The list is rather minor of my experiences. But at the end of the day, your focus is on such a tiny bit of the ocean through a reductionist lens, it's almost disappointing. Albeit it is wonderful traffic to your page

All of that said, it is an interesting question. What if everything we practiced is fake? Is there a point?

There's a point. The point of focus and the explanation of an individual cultures' reality often is conflated since it is used to explain natural phenomenon. However, the critical point is that whilst the cultural explanations of reality are somewhat moot, the experience gained from right practice is not. Now obviously, there's myriad practices under the sun which are fake that sadly build on our level of experience. But your notion throws the baby out with the bath water in an argument that makes no sense.

Remember, the goal of practice isn't to gain Siddhis or focus on dan tians and chakras. The point is to use these abstract conceptualizations created by the mind to unlock the "true mind" and ultimately your true nature.

Rayn, I read your post here. And it fails for a few reasons. Don't get me wrong, it is an amazing testimonial to drive traffic to your page (220 views translates to about 220+ hits of traffic which isn't bad for a few occult articles), but as I said multiple times to you, it's rather reductionistic in nature. That isn't to demerit reductionism, it has led to Microbiology and Molecular Cell Biology (two things in which I take very dear). However, the critical problem with your approach is manifold:

I can't take this post seriously, because you do not know what you are talking about. Reductionist refers to something bottom-up. Holistic refers to top-down. The more abstract something is, the more holistic it is and the less reductionist it is. Biology is abstract; therefore, it is not reductionist. Why? Well, Biology is an abstraction of the underlying Physics and Chemistry. In order for it to make sense, you kind of sort of have view it holistically, anyway. Induction is "technically" top-up unlike say recursion; however, you get a generalization that is supposed to work instead of focusing on particular cases. As an engineer, we always start from top-down or we implement things from general to more specific and we abstract complex things so we can deal with them. In my experience, only people who don't work as engineers or scientists apply a blanket label of reductionist to such things because those that do understand there is hell of a lot of abstraction involved.

I suppose since you don't agree with the prevailing scientific community, I can't take your post(s) seriously. Which sheer irony uses reductionism as a means to dismiss a cultural concept. Which btw has been a limitation of western philosophy for decades.

If you are one of these people who believes in chi, prana, ki, or whatever, just know you are just as foolish as people who believe the Earth is flat

Usage of chi / ki is not equivalent to a belief in vitalism, therefore this entire thread is based on a serious misconception by virtue of its first post being fallacious.

Yes, there exist some users of chi or ki that subscribe to vitalism, but it is by no means standard. In fact the intrinsic association of these two approaches is quite questionable considering that chi/ki practices originated in the cultures of eastern Asia, while the philosophy of vitalism originated in an area encompassing Europe and northern Africa. While I see that wikipedia currently connects these two, that more draws into question the culturally naive level of understanding of the editors of wikipedia than the modern practices of chi/ki/qi.

Going forward I will simply use the spelling "chi" for this post, since as discussed repeatedly, chi, ki, and qi are simply various romanized spellings of a common concept. As for what is actually true about chi culture, the practices in common use vary wildly as they are passed along with the same diversity as many other spiritual or religious practices. The most common trend among practitioners in this area is to associate chi as being a metaphysical energy with an association with core biological processes, such as blood vessels, nerves, muscular motion, and so forth. For modern practitioners this does not necessarily come with any disbelief in modern biology, and therefore is not falsified by throwing basic biological facts at it. Instead, the modern understanding of chi is usually regarded by modern practitioners as supplemental to biology. Chi in modern practices is therefore most commonly regarded as a metaphysical energy that mirrors or allows regulation of scientifically understood biological practices.

If you are going to aggressively call people "foolish" for making use of a practice, then in the future I suggest attempting to better understand the scope of the practices you are actually talking about. In this particular instance it does not appear that you took the time to do so.

Since you saw fit to bold this ridiculous sentence, I will highlight it for a reply. I would hope given my above comments about the actual relationship with modern understandings of chi, you can see how this is ridiculous. There is nothing about chi which contradicts the functionality of aspirin. As is obvious by my avatar here I prefer a psi approach, but modern practitioners of chi, such as the ones I studied under, are perfectly happy to take modern pain killers, and find no contradiction in this because the viewpoints intrinsically do not contradict. If this is surprising to you then it is your misunderstanding.

A corollary of organic chemistry and the rejection of vitalism is that it is possible to synthesize Asprin where analogs to that can be derived from white willow bark. If vitalism were true, which we know it is not, then that should not be possible. The form of my statement was intentionally structured in accordance with #checkmateathiest.

I will stipulate aspirin can be manufactured in this manner. It is not in dispute.

Your sentences make no coherent point other than throwing in a random hashtag. I have doubts that it will make sense even with an explanation because the premise is very tenuous, but if you want them to make sense you will have to try an actual explanation.

Then that implies vitalism is wrong, which is my conclusion. I am not quite sure why you are disagreeing with me. No, practicing whatever you want to practice does not interfere with your ability to take Aspirin and have it work; however, the ability for it to be made to be taken disputes vitalism. By the way, this is why you have zero credibility with me.

Did you notice that not a single person here so far defended vitalism? In fact people only repeatedly told you that vitalism has nothing at all to do with the practices in use, and some even explicitly agreed with you that vitalism is wrong.

Where YOU are wrong is in concluding that a problem with the philosophies of vitalism implies a problem with chi. Your connection of these two, which I quoted from the first post, is simply wrong. And therefore your deduction that a disproof of a conclusion of vitalism discredits chi, when these are not associated and are models from completely different cultures, is wrong.

Do you have the courage appropriate to a scientific mind to admit you made a mistake in connecting these two concepts here?

I am essentially abstracting chi as a vitalistic philosophy based on traits they have in common in such a way to say chi likely is vitalistic.

Let me repeat again for you. Chi as commonly practiced does not share the conclusions of vitalism that you are using to discredit vitalism, and therefore there is absolutely no rationality in back-tracking this to a conclusion about chi.

Let me show you an analogy of your reasoning process:

1) Blue is a color.2) Red is a color.3) Stop signs are red.4) Bob drove past a stop sign.5) Bob ignores signs that are blue.

That is neither deductive nor inductive. It's ridiculous. You only thought you were being inductive, but you were using what is called associative reasoning. Your argument was a heuristic comparison of the form "X has a property like Y, therefore X must have the negatives of Y." This is a common method of sloppy reasoning that is noted in the literature as arising when one stops thinking upon finding an emotionally comfortable conclusion. But the good news is it can be avoided in the future with attention to its process.

In order for you to be able to prove me wrong, you would have to establish that chi is used in a "standard" contemporary context in a way that it likely would fall outside of the case I laid out. ... Prove me wrong with data.

You are trying to put a burden on me to prove that two things from separate cultures are not intrinsically connected? That's not how logical process works, but I'll bite, and provide an authoritative counterexample. To avoid bias, I will describe my process: I looked for an authority figure on chi practices by going to google, typing "qigong association" (without knowing what I would find), clicking on the first link, and clicking "Come Learn", "What is Qigong?": https://www.nqa.org/what-is-qigong-

You will see the term "vital energy" does appear as a translation for qi, but that term has no connection to "vitalism" the philosophy other than the sharing of a few letters.

What you should also note is the way qigong practices are described there is as affecting understood biological processes.

Now, how logic is supposed to work is you are supposed to provide evidence that you are correct when you called people "foolish" and "like being a Flat Earther". I will help you... To actually do that, you would have to actually provide evidence that normal modern chi practices are undermined by your statements about urea and aspirin.

And if you cannot back up your claim, then why are you declaring it so confidently as to insult people? Because if you want to talk about character, that's character.